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We are always being told how underfunded schools are, how badly teachers are paid, how many of them are made sick by teaching, how many retire early due to ill health, and how overcrowded our classrooms are.

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On a vaguely similar note I was watching the TV with Mrs H. when an article about nurses being so poor they had to use foodbanks came on.

Mrs H. (who is a nurse) dismissed it as utter bollocks stating that any nurse who had to use a foodbank needs to seriously have a word with themselves and/or monitor their outgoings or lifestyle a bit better.

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On a vaguely similar note I was watching the TV with Mrs H. when an article about nurses being so poor they had to use foodbanks came on.

Mrs H. (who is a nurse) dismissed it as utter bollocks stating that any nurse who had to use a foodbank needs to seriously have a word with themselves and/or monitor their outgoings or lifestyle a bit better.

She won't be getting a job in the So-Called BBC any time soon.

Several radio phone in programmes have tried to find this mythical nurse - so far with no luck.

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Recent ads on commercial radio were extolling the merits of getting into teaching. They were banging on about salaries being good, plenty of opportunities to progress rapidly into management. There was no mention of actually doing any teaching or interacting with the students....

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I've got members of the family in teaching so sorry if this offends anyone...

These are people that never really grew up (generalising based on the few teachers I know). School to uni/PGCE then back to school. Failing to work in a place with just adults effects the way you think and in the case of teachers I know, gives them a certain sense of entitlement "I'm doing an important job so should be paid more".

Personally I think it's a really demanding job and it is as important as they think it is. Pay is probably about right though. Just explaining why they seem to strike/whinge at the drop of a hat.

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Its not that teacher's are underpaid. Its more the fact of what other job do they see themselves doing FFS?

I have this chat with the teachers at my partners shcool - theyve all got crap degrees in crap subjects. The say 'Id get more money working in a shop' I say - Youre on 25k and get a pension. A shop worker is on ~15k tops and pays their own pension. And theyd have to work an extra 10 weeks at least a year.

Then they say 'Ill do thing that pays more.' I ask 'What?' They dont know. I point out that arts + humanities degrees are worthless in the private sector.

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Recent ads on commercial radio were extolling the merits of getting into teaching. They were banging on about salaries being good, plenty of opportunities to progress rapidly into management. There was no mention of actually doing any teaching or interacting with the students....

There is always plenty of scope to move to managing and running stuff. Schools are short of people who can lead and do stuff like budgets and plan.

However,... that would involve a teacher have to dealing with an adult. And would require them to actually put something down in writing and numbers, which would be looked at by another adult.

MOst teachers go into teaching as they like the long holidays and lack of responsibility.

1 minute ago, blobloblob said:

Wife's a teacher. She earns 41 grand now after 6 years in the job and she'll have a great pension she retires.

BUT she works on average 85 hours a week in the term-time, and still anywhere from 15 to 25 during the holidays.

I tell her she should adopt a more slapdash approach and save 10 hours per week; she says she's in line with what her colleagues are doing.

Crap.

Some teachers do turn up 1h before lessons. Mainly to natter + bitch. But they off before 4pm. No work afterwards.

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BUT There are an awful lot of teachers available every single day from 5pm as private tutors.

You have to ask, what have these people discovered that allows them to do the job in the allotted hours that others haven't - or do they not do the job properly?

The teachers that do manage to work normal hours tend to keep quiet about it. You only hear from the 70+ hour ones but are they just a very vocal minority?

Wife's in primary, can't speak for secondary, but from what I know of her colleagues it's the norm, albeit she's ridiculously thorough. As the special needs coordinator in a sink estate school, she gets to do a whole load of paperwork that other's don't. On the other hand, she only does about 2/3 the class teaching time that a just-a-teacher would. However, I don't think that will affect the time it takes.

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We are always being told how underfunded schools are, how badly teachers are paid, how many of them are made sick by teaching, how many retire early due to ill health, and how overcrowded our classrooms are.

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Wife's in primary, can't speak for secondary, but from what I know of her colleagues it's the norm, albeit she's ridiculously thorough. As the special needs coordinator in a sink estate school, she gets to do a whole load of paperwork that other's don't. On the other hand, she only does about 2/3 the class teaching time that a just-a-teacher would. However, I don't think that will affect the time it takes.

Ok - I can see that a special needs co-ordinator is pretty much an endless task and could occupy as many hours as you could throw at it and still not be finished.

I think we are talking about your bog standard, turn up and teach Geography bod who has taught the same syllabus for years.

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Recent ads on commercial radio were extolling the merits of getting into teaching. They were banging on about salaries being good, plenty of opportunities to progress rapidly into management. There was no mention of actually doing any teaching or interacting with the students....

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Wife's in primary, can't speak for secondary, but from what I know of her colleagues it's the norm, albeit she's ridiculously thorough. As the special needs coordinator in a sink estate school, she gets to do a whole load of paperwork that other's don't. On the other hand, she only does about 2/3 the class teaching time that a just-a-teacher would. However, I don't think that will affect the time it takes.

Yeah. Pissing in the ocean there.

Theyre not special; their parents are thickos or interbred, or both.

Just tick if off as neither the LA, parent or kid cares.

Just got to know which battles you'll win. A kid with a dumb parent insisting they are 'special' is not one youll ever win.

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Quite a few of my family are teachers, very cushy number from what I can see with regards to hours worked and pay/pension/holidays, also as someone else has said a massive sense of entitlement. Fair play though I couldn't deal with unruly kids and thick parents every day. Only one teacher I know actually puts the hours in but he's a brown nosing deputy head who's life ambition seems to be to make it to head. Anecdotally I drive past a large secondary school on my way to and from work everyday. On a morning the gates are still locked, car park empty. When I pass on the way home there might be 2 or 3 cars left in the car park.

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Quite a few of my family are teachers, very cushy number from what I can see with regards to hours worked and pay/pension/holidays, also as someone else has said a massive sense of entitlement. Fair play though I couldn't deal with unruly kids and thick parents every day. Only one teacher I know actually puts the hours in but he's a brown nosing deputy head who's life ambition seems to be to make it to head. Anecdotally I drive past a large secondary school on my way to and from work everyday. On a morning the gates are still locked, car park empty. When I pass on the way home there might be 2 or 3 cars left in the car park.

Indeed, whenever there is mention that it's a cushy job you get the odd few coming out the wood work going on about marking and lesson plans. Don't buy it personally, unless of course you are inept and can't do your work in the time allotted.

My memory from my own school years was that it was start at 9:30 (kids were in at 9 but that was for 30 minutes of registration, which amounted to calling 25 names out of a book which a vast majority of teachers didn't have to do), then an hour of working, 30 minutes break another hour and a half and then a full hours break, then two more hours and then the kids were gone by 3:30.

So core hours 9:30-3:30 with 2 hours break in there. Even if you are marking can't see it's going to take you too much time over and above a normal set of 9 - 5:30 working day.

It's like with most public sector jobs, they think it's terrible conditions and pay without ever having had to have a "proper" job.

I've no doubt it can be a shit job sometimes, but going back again to my memories of school the teachers who had a bad time were those that were incapable of engaging with the kids on any level, said more about them than it did about the kids or job. The better ones flew through it and certainly gave of the impression it was an easy job once you got into the swing of it.

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In the 1980s we spent about £3k per child (all in 2016 £s). It slowly went up, then about the late 90s shot up. It is now about £6k per child.

I don't think we're getting twice the 'education value' that we used to. Oh, we're getting more GCSEs at higher grades, but this doesn't seem to be translating into more effective workers, increasing the value of 'UK PLC' in the world marketplace. In fact, many would argue that we're getting less 'education value' than before, in terms of 'ability of the ex-schoolchild to do something of value in the workplace'.

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When I was governor at the kids primary, on average there was one vacancy a year.

That number alone shows theres not a massive out fow - this was out of teacher population of ~25.

To me, an 4% attrition rate is no issue.

When we opened up the job we'd get ~10 applications. Of those, 5 Id have no problems with employing. And this was within ~ 2 weeks of the opening.

It takes me about 3 months to get 2 people in for interviews. Of those, 1 would be good.

The churn rate of London FE colleges was around 25 percent per year five years ago. I doubt that it has got any better. There is teaching and there is teaching. Primary school, it looks like a complete doss to me.

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The churn rate of London FE colleges was around 25 percent per year five years ago. I doubt that it has got any better. There is teaching and there is teaching. Primary school, it looks like a complete doss to me.

The kids and the subjects level is - although youd may or may not be shocked o listen to some teachers I know worrying if they'll be able to step up from teaching 5 yo maths, and teach 7 yo maths.